Southwest Airlines adds new flights, cuts some others from March 2010

Southwest Airlines, the budget airline based in Dallas, Texas, the United States, is adding over 100 one-way flights to its schedule across the United States and also dropping about 20 flights system-wide in the spring of 2010.

Of the over 100 flights to be added, Chicago is getting the most – 21 flights – followed by Baltimore, a statement from Southwest Airlines said.

The airline will add 9 flights in Tampa and Orlando in Florida, which include some flights on Saturdays (which Southwest Airliners has targeted as a ‘leisure-day’ for travelling to destinations in Florida and Las Vegas). It will raise the number of services from Orlando on Saturdays from 104 flights to 129 flights.

Southwest Airliners says it will add 18 non-stop daily flights from Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport (commonly called BWI-Marshall Airport) in Maryland from March 2010. This increase, the airline clarified, is not an “expansion,” but is the result of the seasonal switch from winter to spring, which lets it “give gains from shorter flight-times.”

At present, the services that Southwest Airlines operates from Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport include 153 daily, non-stop flights to 41 cities in the United States. With the addition of 18 flights, the carrier will be operating 171 daily, direct services to 41 cities – with either extra non-stop flights or connecting flights to 24 other cities.

The carrier has planned to operate 2 extra flights from Baltimore to Orlando and Boston.

The other destinations in the United States which will receive additional flights from BWI-Marshall Airport l include Hartford (Connecticut), Providence (Rhode Island), Columbus (Ohio), West Palm Beach (Florida) and St Louis (Missouri).

Southwest Airlines also is adding another daily flight to New Orleans. (AirTran Airways had announcement a week ago that it will operate extra services to New Orleans).

Along with adding services on some route, Southwest Airlines is doing away with nearly 20 flights system-wide. However, the carrier is not eliminating any flights at BWI-Marshall Airport.

From March 14, 2010, the airline is dropping its route between Austin (Texas) and Philadelphia, besides doing away with one daily departure to Manchester (New Hampshire) and to Providence (Rhode Island).

Southwest Airlines, the second busiest airline in Philadelphia, will add one flight to Tampa (Florida) from Philadelphia in the spring – with the number of daily, non-stop flights going up to 4 from 3 on the Tampa-Philadelphia route.

After the changes, Southwest Airlines will operate from Philadelphia 4 daily services to both Providence and Manchester, instead of 5 departures at present.

The carrier will stop the Austin route, which now has one round-trip flight daily.

In the statement, Southwest Airlines said it has opened booking across its domestic network for flights from March 14 to May 7, 2010. During this busy vacation season, the carrier will add 62 round-trip flights and abolish 10 flights.